What’s the Latest With the Missing Intern? Part 7

Friday, July 6: During a 90-minute meeting with Washington, D.C., police, Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., admits to having an affair with Chandra Levy, according to news reports. The Washington Post says two sources familiar with the meeting say Condit “reversed a denial that his aides had maintained since soon after the intern went missing after April 30.” Condit was “apologetic” for not disclosing the affair earlier, Newsweek reports.

Condit told investigators that his sexual relationship with Levy was ongoing when she disappeared, according to the Washington Post and Newsweek. The meeting took place at the offices of Condit’s Washington lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell, the New York Post reports.

Earlier in the day, before the meeting took place, Lowell appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America and said that Condit “is trying to be as helpful as he can to those police and investigators, including all things that could lead to Chandra Levy.” Washington, D.C., Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer later responded: “He probably is trying, but hopefully he’ll be trying harder.”

Saturday, July 7: At a news conference, Gainer says Condit was “challenged” by investigators to clarify the nature of his relationship with Levy. Gainer said Condit was cooperative, and that the interview didn’t bring investigators closer to finding Levy. “The congressman was not a suspect before the meeting, he was not a suspect during the meeting, and he is not a suspect after the meeting,” Gainer says.

Sunday, July 8: Lowell does the Sunday morning talk show circuit, appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, ABC’s This Week, and CNN’s Late Edition. Lowell sticks closely to his talking points: Condit has cooperated fully with police, and he’s not talking to the press. Lowell tells This Week that he has “no reason to think” that resigning from Congress is on Condit’s “brain, radar screen, purview, constellation.”

Lowell is noncommittal on most substantive questions, but on Late Edition he denies a July 7 San Francisco Chronicle report that a federal grand jury had been convened to hear testimony from Condit and his staff. (Gainer denies the same report, though police have used a sitting grand jury to subpoena Levy’s bank and telephone records, which is standard practice in missing persons investigations.) On the same show, Lowell disputes Fox News’ June 27 story of a “tumultuous breakup” between Levy and Condit. (In a report Monday, the New York Daily News says the Levy family believes Condit’s office leaked that story.)

In a report Monday on Lowell’s TV appearances, the New York Times reports that Lowell hasn’t returned the Times’ phone calls for several days.

Monday, July 9: The Levys want Condit to submit to a lie-detector test, the Washington Post reports. Levy family spokesman Michael K. Frisby says Condit told Susan Levy during their June 21 meeting that he last spoke to Chandra Levy April 24 or 25, but news accounts have reported that Condit told police June 23 that he last spoke to Levy on April 29. “It appears that the congressman has not told the complete truth about the relationship,” Frisby says. “He told investigators one story; he did not come forward and change that story until Chandra’s aunt, Linda Zamsky, detailed publicly the extent of this relationship.”

“A source representing Condit” tells the Post that Condit was giving Susan Levy the last time he saw Chandra Levy in person, but Frisby says Condit was asked to give the last time he either saw Levy or spoke to her on the telephone. The Post points out that April 29, the last day Condit says he spoke with Chandra Levy, is the same day Levy called her aunt Linda Zamsky, leaving a voice message about “big news.”

Lowell tells NBC News that Condit won’t take a polygraph test. “If the Levy family believe there is a discrepancy, have them call me, I will set the record straight,” he says. Washington, D.C., Police Chief Charles Ramsey, however, doesn’t rule out the test, saying “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

NBC, following up on an ABC News report, says police plan to seek a subpoena that would allow them to examine Condit’s cell phone records.

Newsweek quotes “one law-enforcement source” who says the case isn’t close to being solved: “The real issue is the body. We have no clues. This case may not break until someday, somebody will be out walking in the woods or out fishing, and they’ll find what we’re looking for.”